


five ways to die

by cinderfell



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, F/F, Freeform, Guilt, List Fic, POV Second Person, Pre-Canon, Referenced Happy Ending, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-11
Updated: 2017-04-11
Packaged: 2018-10-17 14:03:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10595520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinderfell/pseuds/cinderfell
Summary: She should've died and you should've too, and now you have to deal with the consequences.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this fic came around because of a tumblr ask meme where i was sent titles and i came up with what i would write for each of them, and i really liked the idea i had for this one.
> 
> this is honestly a drastic change from my usual style, so hopefully this isn't too awful.

**i.** When she says your name for the first time.  


  * Rough like her and each syllable spoken with purpose; your name has never sounded more beautiful than when it comes from her lips.
  * You have never been a religious woman but suddenly you think you could be, if only for her, if only she were the goddess you worshiped.
      * (She laughs when you confess this to her years later, the two of you curled together in bed while she runs her fingers through your hair and loosens your braids.)
      * ( _Blasphemy_ , she calls it, but the word holds the deepest affection you’ve ever heard in your life. You kiss her until you feel satisfied that she knows you feel the same, then a little longer. Just because you can.)
  * You think-- you _know_ \-- that this is who you’d want to die beside, with laughter lines and graying hair and hands wound together with hers.



  


**ii.** When the world as you know it shatters around you.  


  * Wreathed in flame as smoke fills your lungs until they’re about to burst; soot smeared down your face as it runs together with sweat and blood and--
      * (And not tears. You don’t cry-- will not cry-- no matter how badly they burn behind your eyes, almost more agonizing than the fire licking across your robes and skin.)
  * \- it's almost too much: the pain, the heat, the fear.
  * You know even as you sling spells at the massive beast that something has changed inside of you, inside all of you, inside the _world_. Something has shriveled up and died as you watch one of your friends, somebody you have spent years with, fall against this ravenous monstrosity.



  


**iii.** When you choose her.  


  * Her platinum armor slathered in crimson and ash, you pull her from the wreckage where she lies and pour your last bit of magic into her.
  * Your friends scream behind you and you know somewhere inside of you that you could help, that you could try to save all of them but at the cost of one life.
      * (But she is the one you can’t lose, the one life you can’t trade away.)
  * She opens her eyes and you nearly sob, and despite everything it feels like it’ll be okay. Just for a moment.
          * _“...Ally?”_
          * _“Shh. Shh. You’re going to be okay. You’re alive.”_
  * You cradle her face in your hands as the world burns down around you.



  


**iv.** When she doesn’t choose you.  


  * The way she looks at you when she finds out what you did, who and what you sacrificed so she could live… she isn’t angry, and that’s the worst part. She’s fire and rage and earnest action but when she looks at you she’s _tired_.
      * (Something snaps between the two of you, a string pulled so taut that it breaks apart at the center.)
          * (You’ll struggle to explain this to her in the years to come, once you’ve managed to tie whatever shredded remains are left back together. She tells you she understands, and for the first time in a long time you don’t feel quite as alone.)
  * A week passes without her company and when she finds you, she doesn’t look at you, her dark eyes settled somewhere just over your shoulder, and all you want to say is _look at me, please look at me, Kima -_
          * _“They’ve called me away. To Vasselheim.”_
          * _“I see.”_
          * _“I’m going.”_
          * _“Alright.”_
  * The words burn as they leave your mouth, stilted and hotter than dragon fire. What you want to say catches in your throat and it takes all your strength not to throw up at the feeling.
  * Your friends are dead and you are impossibly, inexplicably alive and she is gone, and you’d almost prefer if you had burned with them.



  


**v.** When your home becomes a prison of your own making, your mind a double-edged blade.  


  * The loneliness and guilt sits beneath your skin like needles; with the slightest movement it tears into you, reawakening what you thought you put to rest long ago.
  * You read her letters when they come, and you can’t tell if they make you feel better or worse. She is alive, and she is well, but she is also gone.
  * You sit at your desk as you read them over, a lady in your ivory tower like the stories you used to read in your youth.
      * (Those ladies are confined there by witches and hags and when their knight comes for them they leap at the chance to leave; you lock yourself inside this tower, hesitate to leave your own self-imposed isolation. And besides, who’s to say you aren’t a witch or a hag yourself, somebody who trades many lives for just one despite knowing-- _knowing_ \-- how wrong it is?)
      * (And as for the knight, the one in shining armor who saves the lady from the tower? Yours is a world away, and she’s made it clear that she no longer wants to be yours.)
  * You lock away what you can, but when you close your eyes at night it creeps back in; it whispers to you, grazes its teeth along your flesh and reminds you who you are and what you did.
      * ( ~~You think that perhaps things would be better if you had died instead of them.~~ )
  * You pretend you are whole in front of these people-- these _children_ \-- who you now call friends, who remind you too much of yourself and of her and of all the friends that you lost. They are bright and alive and ready for adventure and you aren’t sure if you envy or pity them.
      * (You wonder if this will ever end, if there will come a day when you don’t have to pretend to be happy anymore; a day when you aren’t torn apart by guilt and loss and the absence of the one you love, regardless of whether or not she loves you still.)
              * (It will.)
              * (She does.)




End file.
